Children of Ganit
You cannot fight terrorists with tanks and bombs. By their very nature they blend into our society like weeds in a garden; rooting them out requires playing their game and getting dirty. Inflitration. Assassination. Terror. We need scapels, not clubs. Now what if I were to tell you there are far more insideous and dangerous monsters out there than desperate men with guns? Wouldn't you want to seek them out with equal intelligence? Well there are, and that's what we do. The Children of Ganit is a secret conspiracy of mortals that use human institutions to destroy supernaturals, mostly vampires. In a sense, they play the Kindred games of power struggles not just to better understand them but to better combat them. Kindred are so concerned about being attacked by their peers, they rarely consider a mortal to be on equal footing. The vast majority of the organization's activities are reconnaissance. Since supernaturals are secretive, information is everything. Usually this involves placing listening devices in the right spots, tailing suspicious people, phone taps and so forth. A brave few engage in inflitration but since supernaturals have a way of identifying each other, this is a rare choice. The rest of the activity is execution. Sometimes it's a simple matter of getting the local police department to focus on certain crimes that make life harder for their prey. Other times it's an assassination, which of course requires months or years of planning. This usually involves forms of fire, sunlight, silver or whatever the supernaturals greatest weakness is. Few Children would ever even consider going to toe-to-toe against their target. They know enough that that would be suicide. History In 215 AD Roman Emperor Caracella visited the city of Alexandria, one of the Empire's most important sources of grain. For this reason, the city was under the direct influence of the capital, subject to the often violent whims of the emperors. While the Emperor walked amoung the city streets, he was sullied by a string of insults and satires on the way he attained his title. In the Emperor's rage, he ordered the deaths of every inhabitant capable of bearing arms. This brutal order quickly escalated to a massarce of countless thousands. On that very same day, in that very same city, a young preacher had arrived from Jerusalem to study at this beacon of Christianity. Upon hearing of the Emperor's orders, he made a mad dash to plead to him for the safety of the metropolis. By the time the newcomer got an audience, night had fallen and you could still hear the distant screams. The holy man begged the Emperor for mercy, to recall the troops and bring in medics to heal the wounded. The preacher was a remarkable orator, speaking of prudence and faith as if God himself came down and gave him the words. For a moment, the Emperor seemed swayed until a cloaked man leaned in and they talked silently. Caracella then quickly ordered the preacher to leave without a single word. No one knows what was said, but this desperate servant of God knew it was a type of poison only the Devil could brew. He left swiftly for the monestary he had planned on living in to where he found not more than a dozen young men and women hiding in the wine cellar. Their faces were painted with fear as Roman guards stomp their way through the holy place. The preacher quickly dressed them up as monks and armed nothing but a cross and words to put the fear of God into any bloodthirsty Roman, escorted the youths out of the city. They settled just outside the city in a forgotten cave. The preacher would return to the blood-laden streets two more times, saving another thirty souls. No one slept that night but it was then that they called him by his new name, Ganit: Hebrew for defender. The refugees listened to the preacher's story of the cloaked man whom they all agreed they knew to be of the most evil sort, but little beyond than that. He always roams the forums, for as long as anyone could remember. He often meets with top Romans, talking in secret. He only goes out at night. He does not seem to have a trade. And these were the rumors. Ganit had never heard of such stories but in his heart he knew this man was a monster, one that clearly could not stand the day. Ganit spent the next few days in the city, learning all he could about the cloaked man. It quickly became apparent that the rumors were true and far worse than any could have imagined. The cloaked man was at the heart of the city. Rare was the order that did not ultimately come from him. Ganit returned to the youths with a plan. With the slaughtering over, he dressed some of them in Roman armor he gathered off dead soliders and told the rest to find survivors to gather outside the palace where the Emperor was staying. Ganit then waited until just before dawn and headed to the Emperor where he was talking to the cloaked man about putting the city back together. Ganit interrupted them with the lie that a massive crowd of enraged protestors had gathered outside the palace walls and were threatening breach them. Caracella steped out onto a balcony and saw throngs of Alexandrians being kept at bay by a weakening contingent of "Roman soliders." Ganit immediately insisted they go through the back door as a precaution to which the Emperor agreed. Almost dragging the cloaked man with them, a few guards, Ganit and Caracella made their way to the sea through the gardens next to them. They boarded a small vessel where the cloaked man quickly took cover below deck and the Emperor sat atop, watching the city. As dawn struck the city, Ganit and one of the guards (who was one of the youths), opened up the portholes below deck. The cloaked man, caught off guard in unfamiliar territory, burst into flames as the sun touched his skin. Ganit's success in Alexandria inspired him to dedicate his life to rooting out the secret monsters that roam the nights. The youths he saved all joined him in this endeavor and it is a legacy they continue to this very night. Philosophy Who are these monsters that stalk among us? What do they have to hide? What force of evil gave them such powers beyond that of mortal men? These are the questions that drive the "Ganites" to seek these supernaturals out and the mantra of "absolute power corrupts absolutely" encourages them to think of their targets as dangers to humanity. And why shouldn't they? Werewolves, mages and vampires hold incredible sway over mortal society in a way that rivals the most important of everyday leaders. They have powers over the very fabric of reality, or can live forever or can kill dozens of the best trained troops. And all this while they hide, forming their plans and stepping on the heel of human civilization to do it. They must be stopped at all costs, but with that in mind, one cannot simply barge in and cut off their heads. In every case they have cursed gifts at their disposal so it not only poetic justice to rid of them with their own tools, it's the only feasible way. Organization The Children of Ganit are in every major city in the world in a wide variety of positions. They operate in cells of not more than six Ganites and rarely talk to each other. There is no organization leader per se, but each cell does have a director called, a minister. The only really unifying force are the Letters to St. John, a series of correspondences Ganite Adam wrote to the Bishop of Constantinople in 405-407 AD, trying to convince him of the threat they faced and how they should go about rectifying it. St. John (then merely Chrysostom) acknowledged the possiblity of such a threat but questioned the praticality of such a war. This forced Adam to form a detailed standard operation procedures while making sure they won't stray from their goals. (Naturally Ganites debate about some of these rules and their relation to the modern era.) Even though the letters suggest St. John was interested in supporting this task, it was not to be; he died while travelling. Over the past hundred years, the Children's numbers have been shrinking as people have a harder and harder time acknowledging these supernaturals exist. They have, however, become more diverse in their population. Once soley made up of Christians, their members are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, pagan and even atheist. Naturally such division create tension, but their desire to eliminate those that would try to control humanity often outweighs such differences.